I Engraft You New: Learning to Perform

We learn performance techniques in three main ways: playing, rehearsing and performing. Each of these relates to an aspect of development of the performance self: 1 Playing: learning to express the self 2 Rehearsing: learning to express the ‘self’ of another — creating a role 3 Performing: the interaction of expressed self with other selves Seen as a dialectic, playing concerns being, rehearsing representing, and performance is the synthesis of the two. All three stages of this dialectic take place in the context of group work, whether in (1) the classroom or playground, (2) the rehearsal studio, or (3) the theatre. This chapter will deal with the first two categories, the remainder of the book the third.